Rhetorical question - a rhetorical figure , representing a question-statement, which does not require an answer.
In fact, a rhetorical question is a question the answer to which is not required or not expected due to its extreme obviousness to the speaker. In any case, the interrogative statement implies a well-defined, well-known answer, so the rhetorical question, in fact, is a statement made in interrogative form. For example, the asking question “How much longer will we endure this injustice?” Does not expect an answer, but wants to emphasize that “We endure injustice, too long” and as if hinting that “It’s time to stop tolerating it and undertaking something about this . ”
The rhetorical question is used to enhance the expressiveness (emphasis, emphasis) of a particular phrase. A characteristic feature of these revolutions is convention, that is, the use of the grammatical form and intonation of the question in cases that, in essence, do not require it.
The rhetorical question, as well as the rhetorical exclamation and rhetorical appeal, are peculiar turns of speech that enhance its expressiveness, the so-called. figures . A distinctive feature of these revolutions is their conventionality, that is, the use of interrogative, exclamatory, etc. intonations in cases that essentially do not require it, so that the phrase in which these revolutions are used acquires a particularly emphasized shade that enhances its expressiveness. So, the rhetorical question is, in essence, a statement made only in interrogative form, by virtue of which the answer to such a question is already known in advance.
Rhetorical exclamation and rhetorical treatment
A rhetorical exclamation has a similar conditional character, in which exclamatory intonation does not follow from the meaning of a word or phrase, but is arbitrarily attached to it, thereby expressing attitude to this phenomenon, for example:
Swipe! Takeoff! Shuttle, get it! Val, spin around!
Drive, whirlwind length! Do not be late!- Bryusov V.Ya.
Here the words “swing”, “take off”, as well as the words take-off and fly-in, which indicate the movement of machines, are given with exclamations expressing the feelings with which the poet observes these machines, although in their very words there are no grounds for exclamatory intonation .
In the same example, we find a rhetorical appeal , that is, again, a conditional appeal to objects that in essence cannot be addressed (“Shuttle, Sleep!”, Etc.). The structure of this appeal is the same as in the rhetorical question and the rhetorical exclamation.
Thus, all these rhetorical figures are a kind of syntactic constructions that convey the well-known elation and pathos of the narrative.
Examples of rhetorical questions
- “And who are the judges?” ( Griboedov, Alexander Sergeevich . “Woe from Wit” )
- “Where do you ride, proud horse, / And where do you lower your hooves?” ( Pushkin . “The Bronze Horseman” )
- “And what kind of Russian doesn’t like to drive fast?” ( Gogol, Nikolai Vasilievich . “Dead Souls” )